Program Guide 11-29-2017

Almanac

November 29

1632 Jean-Baptiste Lully baptized – Italian-born French composer, instrumentalist, and dancer (d.1687); spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV and is considered the chief master of the French baroque style; invented in the 1650s the ‘French overture’, a form used extensively in the Baroque and Classical eras, especially by Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.

1797 Gaetano Donizetti – Italian composer (d.1848); along with Gioacchino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the 19th century.

1862 first performance of Johannes Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 2 at the old Gesellschaft für Musikfreunde Vereinsaal in Vienna, by the Hellmesberger Quartet with the composer at the piano.

1983 premiere of Olivier Messiaen's opera St. Francis of Assisi at the Paris Opéra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa.